The E-Sylum:  Volume 5, Number 38, September 22, 2002, Article 10

ITALIAN TELEPHONE TOKENS

  Christopher Rivituso writes: "I recently read that phone box
  tokens in Italy freely circulated as money and that it was not
  at all uncommon to receive them in change. Can anybody
  confirm this and tell me how much the gettone were worth?
  What is the situation now in Italy, with the euro in circulation?
  Are the gettone still circulating? If so, what is their current
  worth?

  Actually, I would imagine that there are less and less gettone,
  even before the euro came into circulation, seeing that
  card-only phoneboxes have proliferated in Europe. I'm sure
  that Italy is no exception."

 [Until I read Christopher's note, I was unfamiliar with the
  term "Gettone", which I assume is Italian for "Token".
  A quick web search turned up some information and
  illustrations of the tokens and telephones which accepted
  them (in both English and Italian):

  http://users.pullman.com/fjstevens/tokens/Gettone/
  http://www.iltrogolo.it/attila/coins/200_lire_gettone.htm

  http://www.telecomitalia.it/gruppo/unsecolo_distoria/archivio_storico/index.asp
  http://news2000.libero.it/editoriali/6131.jhtml

  Telephone tokens came up earlier this year in an item about
  Howard Daniel III's research (see The E-Sylum v5#35,
  September 3, 2002)  Since we have subscribers in Italy,
  perhaps someone can give us an update on the use and
  collecting of these tokens.   -Editor]

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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